Frequent luminaire failures

[Heptagon]

Well - we got through the play - I did it their way and sent our operator out to switch on and off each performance.

Since we are committed to the venue, and another play is coming, do you think it is worth buying (about 4) of something like the "Belkin 4-outlet Surge Protection Strip" and inserting them between the general power outlets and our lights?

Our storm season is not yet on us, but when it arrives, we can expect a violent electric storm about every 3 weeks. (One of these storms took our two of our EVE P130 lights last storm season).

[sunray]

10 hours ago, Heptagon said:

Well - we got through the play - I did it their way and sent our operator out to switch on and off each performance.

Since we are committed to the venue, and another play is coming, do you think it is worth buying (about 4) of something like the "Belkin 4-outlet Surge Protection Strip" and inserting them between the general power outlets and our lights?

Our storm season is not yet on us, but when it arrives, we can expect a violent electric storm about every 3 weeks. (One of these storms took our two of our EVE P130 lights last storm season).

To be honest I haven't really got to grips with the setup (very likely my bad reading). You mentioned extention leads and you mention walking out onto the lighting balcony.

So are the power sockets you have to use in a different location to your lights?

[Robin D]

If you can afford it, I would suggest good large double conversion UPS which run on-line for your LED's. These only use the incoming power to charge the battery meaning they are decoupled from incoming spikes etc. 

[timsabre]

11 hours ago, Heptagon said:

 

Since we are committed to the venue, and another play is coming, do you think it is worth buying (about 4) of something like the "Belkin 4-outlet Surge Protection Strip" and inserting them between the general power outlets and our lights?

 

Why are you thinking this might be necessary? This is a bit of a departure from the original question which was about the venue equipment failing due to being plugged into dimmed power outlets.

 

(these surge strips are a waste of money in my opinion anyway)

[mnorwood]

12 hours ago, Heptagon said:

Our storm season is not yet on us, but when it arrives, we can expect a violent electric storm about every 3 weeks. (One of these storms took our two of our EVE P130 lights last storm season).

Hold on: this is something that you don't appear to have mentioned previously.

Let's get this straight - the original complaint was that fixtures were failing well before their life expectancy, and now we find out that there are sometimes "violent electrical storms" that have been known in the past to take out (hirers') fixtures[*]! Forgive me if I'm missing something or this is a stupid question: but has it been completely ruled out that the storms are not causing the venue's equipment failure woes?

([*] - And in a play-season prior to the requirement for hirers to use different power sockets came into force if I'm getting the chronology correct; implying that surges are not being stopped/mitigated by the house power distro racks.)

 

2 hours ago, sunray said:

You mentioned extension leads and you mention walking out onto the lighting balcony.

So are the power sockets you have to use in a different location to your lights?

It would help in this regard to have a better idea of where the power sockets are in relation to the lights. @Heptagon do you have a diagram (e.g. a lighting plot that shows positions of fixtures (both venue and hired) and power sockets) that you might care to share with us?

[Heptagon]

Sorry for not making the situation clear - there are three parties - us as hirers, the venue owners (without a lot of theatrical expertise), and contractors who set up and maintain the lighting and AV. 

There are fairly inaccessible lights above the stage, a nice accessible bridge above the audience, and balconies in the back wall (behind the audience) with space for long-throw lights (no seating - just lighting battens).

As things were set up, the distro racks only supplied the over-stage and bridge units - the balconies were fed by general power outlets - one on each balcony.

As far as we can tell (we don't get much info) no-one has ever connected a LED unit to a dimmed output. Earlier on, we did use a 12 channel dimmer feeding up to 8 of our tungsten units using our own looms (2 four-way looms).  This was connected to a different 3-phase outlet, and had no 240v connection with any venue equipment (only DMX). Since the venue brought in the no-dimmer rule, we have not used it again.

We agitated for the switching off of the distro racks when the theatre is dark, and this was done recently, but the contractors realised that the balcony lights would not be protected, so they ran two leads from the bridge to feed the balconies. 

All should have been well, but they also ran two other leads feeding from the general outlets on the balconies to the bridge to be used for our lights. These are unprotected. 

I do not know for sure what is causing the high failure rate in the lights - but I suspect having them on 24/7 is the root cause. I do know what wiped out two of our lights on the night of a major storm (they were powered on). There has never been any documented case of an LED luminaire having been damaged by a dimmer in this venue (only pure speculation).  

[Heptagon]

The blue arrows indicate leads which now provide protected power to the balconies. The red arrows are leads bringing unprotected power to the bridge for hirers equipment. The GPO's on the balconies are about halfway along the wall side, and there are profiles that have to be stepped over to reach them. I hope this helps.

[Tomo]

From what's turned up in this thread so far I would say it is highly likely that the damage is due to leaving the fixtures powered during large electrical storms.
- As I have not seen any of the actual fixtures, this is of course speculation based on comments so far on this thread.

Repeated large electrical storms are quite likely to damage electronic equipment like LED fixtures (and computers/consoles etc) if they are not isolated. A strike near local transmission lines or substation may result in quite large surges that can damage or even overcome the built-in protection.

The built-in protection has a maximum rating - so a big enough hit will overwhelm it and damage the electronics.

It also wears out if subjected to repeated surges. Even a small hit heats up surge suppression devices a lot (that's how it works), and (esp. if not given a chance to cool) this can 'burn out' some of the protective internal structure, reducing its effectiveness.
Over time subjecting a device to repeated 'small' strikes may burn out much of the protection, until finally an event that a new device would handle just fine instead damages or even destroys it.

It is generally recommended that unused equipment is isolated during large storms.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Tomo

[Heptagon]

Thank you all for your help.

I am confident now that the failures are being caused by a combination of storm damage and worn/dirty fans - both problems exacerbated by the luminaires having being powered on 24/7 for years (even when the theatre was dark during Covid lockdown I think).

This means that the failure rate should drop dramatically with the new protocol, but some damage may have occurred to the lights which hasn't shown up yet.

I consider a hardware switch-off would be preferable, but the APS auto-switch off should give some protection from lightning, and certainly save the fans and reduce dust collection.

I cannot see any reason that our lighting cannot be connected to the APS, and will agitate for that.

I have further questions - but will start another thread to avoid thread creep

🙃 

[Ynot]

One thing to bear in mind is that if those lanterns with fans have never been cleaned at all, then the problem IS still going to be there. 

Unless the venue has a programme of dropping everything from the grid for an annual/bi-annual clean and test, then it's not going to go away - but that is definitely the venue's responsibility.

[ImagineerTom]

I can't help thinking (quite aside from fuzzed up fans and being exposed to energy spikes) leaving the kit on 24/7 is probably contributing to the failures as theatre kit just isn't designed for that sort of use. Even lights in heavy duty use situations (theme park rides, cruise ships, architectural) have power cycling and inspection procedures scheduled precisely because they are being pushed to the limit of their design.